THE IMPORTANCE OF BOOK REVIEWS

THE IMPORTANCE OF REVIEWING

THE BOOKS THAT YOU READ

(ESPECIALLY MINE!)

By Phil Chapman OM

May 2015

I SAW A VERY SHORT NEWS ITEM just today. It stated that the average attention span in our society has now dropped to below that of a goldfish. Humans eight seconds, goldfish nine seconds. Now remember, that is the average…meaning that half the people you know can apparently focus for less than eight seconds. Thus, it would seem that most of the people who saw that news flash, which I believe ran for a bit more than 8 seconds, failed to apprehend it! This does not bode well for writers and sellers of books.

OK! Calm down! I’m not talking about you! Already, you are more than eight seconds into this piece. Apparently you have above average attention span, and you are reading…two good signs.

I am officially removing my tongue from my cheek now…

As a relatively new self-published author, I share a problem that is rife amongst my ilk. It is one thing to write a book, and surely writing one is a huge undertaking and accomplishment, but that achievement pales in the face of the task of now marketing that book. That task is a whole separate career! One starts, of course, with ones friends. But even that is harder than one would think. Most of my friends have not taken it upon themselves to read my novel “Medicine Fire…even though they know that “my guts are in it” and that I consider it to be one of the most important accomplishments of my life. I have no doubts about the book itself. Well over a thousand people have downloaded it from Amazon, and it maintains a five-star rating. Reviewers have used terms ranging from “entertaining”, “wonderful”, “charming”, and “ heart touching”, through “profound”, “thought provoking”, and “an inspiration.” This experience has driven home the understanding that book readers are indeed a diminutive minority these days. Most of my friends fall quiet when the subject comes up. Some explain that they just don’t read, others cite inability to download an e-book (although Candy Crush seems to be within reach), and yet another set profess a need for “real books”, not digital downloads. I am over it. Those of my friends that did read my work were universally impressed and pleased…but alas, relatively few, even of those, took the trouble to write me a review on Amazon. Blessing upon those of you that did. Like most budding authors then, my “friends crop” of readers rendered a sprinkling of reviews.

So, what is this obsession with reviews?

I believe that the “problem” here is that those reviews are much more important to the author than to the reader. Readers look at just a couple of reviews in choosing a book. Few seem to reflect upon the fact that if the reviewer had not bothered, their choice would have been much more difficult. Fewer still choose to “pay it forward”, despite a plea and explanation about the importance of reviews from the author. Their interest in, and obligation to the book experience ceases with the words “THE END”.

For the author, though, this preoccupation with reviews has crucial purpose. I reiterate it here in the hope of inspiring readers to reward authors that they enjoy, and to participate in their success.

The good news is that “anyone can write a book and e-publish it on Amazon.” The bad news is that “anyone can write a book and e-publish it on Amazon!” There is sea of garbage out there that dwarfs the Pacific Gyre. THE FILTER THAT DISTINGUISHES THE GOOD FROM THE BAD AND THE UGLY IS REVIEWS! That very slim portion of the reading population that can out-focus a goldfish often reads 4 or more e-books a month. Their lives, like all of our lives, are busy, and they do not want to spend potential reading time checking bad reviews on garbage books. To solve this, they subscribe to one of the many “reader newsletters” that are e-mailed to them weekly or monthly, informing them about good new books in their favorite genres, and on especially good deals or sales on proven books. How do those books get to be on those reader newsletters? The author has to APPLY, BE CHECKED OUT, QUALIFY, AND PAY the newsletter publisher. How does the newsletter publisher check out and qualify the book? REVIEWS! A handful of positive reviews qualify an unknown author for inexpensive inclusion in a minor league newsletter (thanks friends), and he/she will gain exposure to a few thousand subscribers. Hopefully, as a result, the author sells enough books to recoup the newsletter fee and garner a few more positive REVIEWS. These additional reviews in turn qualify him/her for inclusion in a larger, more prestigious newsletter with greater circulation. And so, laboriously, hopefully, painfully the author climbs that marketing ladder, praying that one day his/her name will be recognized, that books will sell by word of mouth. Blockbuster success is less likely than being struck by lightening.

So the next time you read a book and reach “THE END” please take a moment to write a review, give a nod of respect to the person that has spent hundreds of hours writing for you, and has spent hundreds more clinging to that ladder of author success just waiting for that little push to get to the next rung, that acknowledgement of effort that makes it all worth while.